Benny Hill's saucy smirks at underdressed women are relished the world over. Yet the comedian cut an unlikely figure of global admiration: unmarried and emotionally enfeebled in his few relationships, he was a deeply private individual uninterested in the trappings of success, a frugal man content to live in his humble childhood home flooded, freezing and burgled while his building society account bulged with millions of pounds he didn't use and hadn't wanted to earn.

FUNNY PECULIAR is the first objective and full account of Benny Hill's life and work. Tenaciously researched and yet sensitively reported, it charts the highs, lows and many paradoxes of a man whose professional strengths - observation, impression and mime - bought him unimagined success, and whose weakness, especially an inability to change, fashioned his ultimate downfall.

'Riveting and unexpectedly sympathetic' Craig Brown, MAIL ON SUNDAY

'A revelation . . . entertaining and exhaustively researched' Kathryn Flett, OBSERVER